Rosalie Riccio enlisted in the Navy straight out of high school and treated sailors aboard naval vessels in the Pacific. Next year she plans to run the Boston Marathon for Home Base, the Charlestown program she credits with saving her life, with a fundraising target of $15,000.
The Connecticut native has already finished this year's 26.2-mile Tough Ruck, an endurance event that requires participants to carry a weighted rucksack. WCVB reported Wednesday that she is now pointing that same distance at a charity effort for the nonprofit, which provides mental health care and suicide prevention for current service members, veterans and their families.
Getting to the Door
Riccio has said she recognized she needed help and still found it difficult to ask. She has also said she has trouble putting her own needs first, and that she moved because of the people she loves. Friends encouraged her to connect with Home Base.
That path is familiar in military communities, where the person who has spent years looking after everyone else can be the last to book an appointment. Riccio hopes that telling the story will make it easier for other service members and veterans to seek care. She has described resilience as getting help, doing hard things, working on herself and helping other people do the same.
Two Weeks in Charlestown
She completed an intensive two-week treatment program at Home Base's Charlestown facility, at no cost to her. She has described the program as the equivalent of two years of therapy.
What stayed with her, in her account to WCVB, was less a single clinical milestone than the room itself. Staff made people feel at home. Being around other service members restored a kind of camaraderie she had been missing. "Home Base saved my life," she said.
Home Base is a Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital program, headquartered in Boston's Charlestown Navy Yard. Since its founding in 2009, it has supported more than 65,000 veterans, service members and family members and trained more than 85,000 clinicians and community members, WCVB reported in its coverage of Wednesday's fundraiser.
From the Ruck to a Bib
The Tough Ruck asked her to cover a marathon distance under a pack. She joked that running without a backpack, or without an extra 30 pounds, ought to help. Her time goal for the Boston Marathon is under five hours and 30 minutes. She has called the $15,000 for Home Base the bigger target.
WCVB's reporting does not establish that she has been named a charity runner, or set the date of the race she plans to enter. What it does establish is the plan, and a side project with a built-in civic joke: the Connecticut native is auctioning her New York Yankees memorabilia to benefit the Red Sox Foundation, which supports Home Base. How much the auction brings in has not been reported.
Room for More Patients
The clinic she is raising money for has been adding space for years. In 2018, Home Base received a $65 million donation from the Wounded Warrior Project. The Boston Globe reported then that the gift was expected to let the program care for and support about 1,500 veterans a year, double the number it was serving at the time.
A later build-out was more specific about the rooms. Home Base and Suffolk Construction partnered with the Wounded Warrior Project on a $5.1 million project that added 5,500 square feet of clinical space in Charlestown. Executive director Jack Hammond said the expansion would "enable us to double the number of Special Operations team members that come here every week." The grand opening of two new clinics drew about 250 people, the Globe reported in October 2024, in a story on treatment for brain injuries among veterans.
A Telethon, Then a Longer Road
WCVB and Home Base are holding a daylong Veterans Day telethon Wednesday to raise awareness and funds for veterans, service members and military families. No fundraising total from the broadcast has been reported.
Riccio's own clock runs past tonight. The pack is already off her shoulders. The marathon, the $15,000 and the Yankees gear headed toward a Red Sox Foundation auction are the next measurable things, and the reason she is telling the story is still the two weeks in Charlestown that she says put her back among people who understood the job.
